The Sincerity of Lying by Politicians and Learning to Discover the Truth

Publication date: 2003-02-09

Charles Kennedy, the leader of the British Liberals, who is poised to bring Britain back to a two-party democracy from its present one-party system, said that he believes that Tony Blair's arguments in support of the Iraq War are sincere, but self-contradictory.

But politicians usually are sincere when they talk obvious nonsense.

It's the same like a child, who has just spilled the milk, saying with passion and sincerity: "It was not me!". His sincerity is genuine. He does not want to tell a "deliberate lie", he is just defending his position, trying to avoid unpleasant for him consequences. He is in no state to think
about truthfulness of what he is saying, the words are just coming out of his mouth by themselves
together with the tears from his eyes. And this precisely what happens to politicians.

Politicians do not think: "What lie or logical nonsense am I going to tell next?". The truth or falsehood or the logical validity of what they say are irrelevant to them. They are just instinctively defending themselves, just like the child that has spilt the milk. They are indeed sincere.

Hitler was dead sincere and passionate about his beliefs. And so were Lenin and Stalin. And so was Tony Blair when he believed in "the public ownership of the means of production" and defended his beliefs with the same sincerity and passion, as he defends any of his politics today.

Tony cooks his dossiers to justify wars. But to start a war without sufficient reasons is not a joke, it is a major crime.

By his dossiers Tony seeks to deceive the public, which is also a crime.

But to start a war while justifying it by deception of the public by a group of people holding a public office is a criminal conspiracy to commit acts of arson, destruction and murder on a mass scale aggravated by fraud and abuses of government powers. This is certainly not a joke. It is a crime which should be reported to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Tony Blair wants his war passionately and sincerely. But the sincerity of politicians does not turn their lies into truth, or their nonsense into logically valid reasoning. Nor does it make the consequences of acceptance of their lies and their nonsense less disastrous.

If the people do not want to suffer the consequences of sincere lies by politicians, they have to learn not to be carried away by their passions or sincerity, but to look impassionately, skeptically and objectively at the facts and the evidence and the underlying assumptions.

Questioning the underlying assumptions is especially important. Any human idea or statement is based on some fundamental assumptions, which are often unquestioningly accepted as true.
But, if, as is often the case, these assumptions are false, then no matter how logical all the arguments based on these assumption are, the conclusions based on these arguments will be false.

If to assume that the Earth is flat and not infinite, then it is correct to suppose that it has edges. People were searching for the Edges of the Earth and arguing about their shape for centuries - until they discovered that the Earth is round, and has no edges at all.

This is true for wars or for violence by private individuals. Views, beliefs, attitudes, ideologies, national interests, military superiority, oil, gold, zinc, copper, personal dislikes, desire to test the latest weapons on real people, or just seeking to be popular are not valid reasons for wars. Not even, if 100% of people are in favour of it.

People need to learn to question the validity of the fundamental premises, and to understand what they are talking about before accepting nonsense from politicians. Politicians need to be told that they are paid for performing the dull, boring and necessary task of government, not for playing politics. And the task of government needs to be defined and strictly audited and controlled. This is the way to a peaceful, honest, secure and prosperous world. Not party politics.

World War I and World War II were caused, not by oil, coal or iron-ore - they are inanimate objects. They were caused by dreams and ambitions of politicians and by people trusting political demagogues. Do we need a World War III to learn that simple truth?